Marvel Studios used its D23 panel to answer one of the biggest casting questions hanging over its X-Men reboot, and the pick surprised almost everyone. Rogue will be played by Inde Navarrette, the 25-year-old actress who spent this year turning a $750,000 horror movie into a box office phenomenon.
Navarrette wasn’t a name most casual moviegoers knew a year ago. She had steady television work, a brief but memorable Twitch career, and then Obsession happened, and suddenly she was the actress everyone in Hollywood wanted to talk about. Now she’s stepping into a role that Anna Paquin defined for an entire generation of X-Men fans.
Inde Navarrette’s Journey From Obsession to X-Men
Navarrette’s breakout came as Nikki in Curry Barker’s Obsession, a supernatural horror film about a wish that turns a friendship into something violent and possessive. The role earned her serious critical attention, including comparisons to horror leads in The Exorcist and Carrie, and it made her a genuine awards conversation contender this fall.
Before that, she built her résumé the unglamorous way. She played Estela de la Cruz in 13 Reasons Why, then spent four seasons as Sarah Cushing on The CW’s Superman & Lois. She also spent part of the pandemic streaming games like The Last of Us and Red Dead Redemption on Twitch, building a following of 63,000 subscribers before acting fully took over her schedule.
That range, quiet supporting work followed by an explosive lead performance, is exactly what convinced Marvel she could handle Rogue’s split identity: a Southern girl who has to keep everyone she loves at arm’s length because her touch can kill them.
Related: Before ‘Obsession’ Made Her Famous, Inde Navarrette Built Her Own PC Just to Pay Rent
Was She Actually Campaigning for Mystique?
Here’s the twist buried in her own press tour. Navarrette spent months after Obsession openly saying she wanted to play Mystique, and she confirmed she’d met with director Jake Schreier about the franchise. Marvel gave her Rogue instead.
The connection isn’t a total loss. In the comics, Mystique raised Rogue and trained her inside the Brotherhood of Mutants before Rogue defected to Xavier’s team in 1983. If Mystique eventually shows up in this new franchise, Navarrette’s Rogue already has a built-in reason to know her.
The animated side of the fandom has already weighed in. Lenore Zann, who has voiced Rogue since 1992’s X-Men: The Animated Series and returned for X-Men ’97, posted a welcome video from Dublin.
“I can’t wait to meet you, Sugah. And I will be coming back to North America in the next month, so I look forward to that day,” she said in an Instagram video.
Navarrette replied directly in the comments: “hello! what a honor! thank you for this kind message!”
Rogue’s comic history gives Navarrette a lot to work with if the film goes that route: a former villain who permanently absorbed Carol Danvers’ flight and strength before switching sides, not the toned-down teenager Fox’s trilogy leaned on.
Zann has said publicly that the Fox films skewed Rogue younger to chase a teen audience, and that X-Men ’97 was closer to the character as written. That’s the version this casting seems built for.
Navarrette now joins a lineup that includes Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, Kit Connor as Cyclops, Samara Weaving as Emma Frost, Christopher Abbott as Professor X, Maya Boyd as Storm, and Adam Driver as Mister Sinister. Cameras roll on the Jake Schreier film next year, with a release date set for May 5, 2028.
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